Stories for February 2008

The United States Senate voted Thursday to extend expiring trade preferences that allow Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia to send most products to the U.S. duty-free. The ten month extension, through the end of 2008, was approved without objection.

Canada's Blue Sky Uranium Corp. announced that it has entered into a Letter of Agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of Argentina Uranium Corp., thereby gaining control of over 500,000 hectare uranium land package in Argentina.

The specter of energy shortages in Chile reared its head again this week, as the Ministry of Economy released a short-term plan to confront the country's increasingly perilous energy scenario, particularly the prospect of electricity rationing, which the government last instituted in 1998. The order contains 30 points that intend to help Chile's electricity providers to operate responsibly in the coming year.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said on Thursday that small US banks are likely to fail in the months ahead as the housing slump takes its toll. Bernanke also warned that the US is currently facing a more difficult situation than in the aftermath of the dotcom bust in 2001.

Cuba signed on Thursday two legally binding human rights agreements at the United Nations in New York just days after Raul Castro was sworn in as the new president. The covenants - part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - commit Cuba to freedom of expression and association, and the right to travel, which Fidel Castro long opposed.

So much for the announcement, but even if the events were not to be held, the mere planning of the gatherings should help reveal the depth of the failure of Mercosur, as an ambitious vision, and the absence of Argentina's foreign policy for its national borders.

Nuclear aircraft carrier USS George Washington, one of the world's most impressive man-o-war and three other US Navy units will be participating in joint exercises with the navies from Brazil and Argentina along the coast of Rio do Janeiro, reports Correio Braziliense Friday edition.

Argentina is planning to import, by sea, liquid gas, LNG, in the coming months in an effort to anticipate and contain a repeat of past winters shortages, reports the Friday edition of the Buenos Aires press.